Colonel Ingersoll was not invited by the lyceums to lecture in their regular courses, but his fame was so great that he did not need their aid in getting audiences. Whenever he wanted to lecture he sent out an agent, “hired a hall,” and lectured at his own risk, and, almost always, when in large cities, to his own pecuniary benefit. In the smaller towns the church influence was always too much for him, and it did not pay him to lecture in such places.
While coming from New England one day with Mr. Beecher, Colonel Ingersoll was in the same car. After a pleasant salutation between the two, the Colonel went to his seat. In his mischievous way Mr. Beecher said, “I have written that man’s epitaph.” He showed me written on the margin of a newspaper, with his pencil, two words: “Robert Burns.”
FREDERICK DOUGLASS for two or three decades was one of the favorites of the lyceum, which he abandoned only after the emancipation of his race. Douglass was beyond all comparison the ablest man whom the black race ever produced in our country, either among the pure black or the class of mixed blood. He himself was a mulatto. His father was pure white of a distinguished Maryland family. His mother was pure black and his father’s slave—that is, his mother was a pure black and his father a pure—I should say impure—white. He always gave his mother the credit of his talents. Douglass was born a slave. In early manhood he managed to escape on a ship, and landed in New Bedford, Mass. There he soon learned to read, and worked at such work as he could find. By and by he attended anti-slavery meetings, and soon became a popular speaker and the pet of the abolitionists. His graphic accounts of his life as a slave were very popular.
From giving the story of his life, he gradually branched out into discussions of the political questions of the day, and, next to Phillips, was probably the ablest orator of the anti-slavery movement. Eventually he went to Rochester and published, for many years, a weekly antislavery paper. Its title was Frederick Douglass’s Paper, which, next to Garrison’s Liberator and The Anti-Slavery Standard, was recognized as the ablest anti-slavery paper in America. Then he became a lecturer, and his fame spread so rapidly that he took rank in the favor of the lecture-going public with Phillips and the other leading lights of the lyceum. When Lincoln came into power, Douglass moved to Washington, and was appointed to office in the District of Columbia as Marshal, a position he held during the entire period of Lincoln’s administration.
Douglass’s first wife was a plantation negress without any education. A few years ago he married again. His second wife was white, and a woman of education and ability. The black race has developed under freedom many effective speakers, but Douglass was the only man among them who deserved to be regarded as a real orator. Most of the negro speakers were really benefited in public esteem on account of their color—that is, they could not have had as good a reputation as they won if they had been white, for their audiences made excuses for them that they would not have made for a white man. But Douglass was retarded by his color, for he would have won a higher rank if he had been a white man.
After hearing Douglass and Anna Dickinson speak at the first Southern Loyalist Convention at Philadelphia, John Minor Botts, the famous Virginian political leader, said:
“To-day I have heard the greatest white woman and the greatest colored orator in America. I tell you, sir, if Douglass had been a white man he would have been regarded as one of the greatest men in America.”
“Well, sir,” was the reply of his Northern listener, “we regard him as one of the greatest men in our country, even though he is a colored man.”
In Janesville, Wis., Sol Hudson, proprietor of the American House, would not allow Douglass in the dining-room. The Water Witch Engine Co., under whose auspices Douglass had been engaged to lecture, got out a hose cart and engine and were going to wash out the place. Mr. Douglass came out on the porch and said:
“Go back. Don’t blame the man. He is not to blame.”
He made a plea there that put us all to shame.
After accepting office, Douglass virtually retired from the lecture field, and whenever he appeared in public made Republican speeches.
Mr. Douglass died in Washington, December 10, 1895.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON is another great black man who has developed under freedom. He is principal and founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute of Tuskegee, Ala., in the Black Belt, where the colored people outnumber the white three to one.
Mr. Washington, in his speech at the opening of the Atlanta Exposition, September 18, 1895, it is believed by many, solved the race problem. His address was one of the most notable speeches both as to character and the warmth of its reception ever delivered to a Southern audience, and was favorably commented on editorially by every newspaper in the South. Born a slave, he occupies a place among the foremost men of the age.
At the Home Missionary Meeting of the Presbyterians in Carnegie Hall, New York, March 3, 1896, where President Cleveland presided, and where many of the greatest preachers and pulpit orators took part, this modest, unassuming negro of the South was the lion of the evening, next to the President. He was a revelation to the people of the North. He has fire and magnetism and gifts of oratory which few of our Northern orators possess, whether they be black or white. He speaks with force and conviction and leaves an indelible impression on the minds of his hearers.
The President’s visit to Tuskegee on Friday, November 16, 1898, was as delightful an occasion as any of the numerous events in Atlanta. Its significance is perceived by all, but it was emphasized when Secretary Long, in an impromptu speech in the school chapel, called attention to the striking spectacle presented by “the trinity seated on the platform, the notable conjunction in that State, of its Governor, the President of the nation, and Booker T. Washington seated together.”
It is not too much to say that one of the chief objects of President McKinley’s tour in the South on that occasion was the visit which he made to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institution.
The President made there the longest speech of the tour.
He and his party were met at the station by the mayor and town council of Tuskegee and the trustees of the school, and were driven through the town to the school.
A few minutes were spent in driving over the grounds, after which the party, from a grand stand, viewed a general exhibition of school work on floats, carried on wagons.
All the visitors to Tuskegee went away with the memory of a few hours wholly bright with simple, cordial welcome and the evidences that long strides in the right direction toward the solution of the negro problem have been taken here.
At the opening meeting in the chapel of the institution were crowded together the students of the school, the negroes of the vicinity, the white people of the town, and members of the Georgia legislature.
Mr. Washington, in a short speech which he made before asking Governor Johnston to introduce the President, said:
“In the presence of the chief magistrate of the nation, I am glad to testify that in our efforts to teach our people to put brains and skill and dignity into the common occupations of life, we have not only the active help of all classes of citizens in the little town of Tuskegee, but of the best people of the South. Said our present Governor, in his recent message to the legislature: ‘Every dollar given to the cause of education becomes invested capital that cannot be lost or destroyed, but will continue to pay dividends from one generation to another.’ These are the words, this is the spirit, that governs the actions of the present Governor of Alabama, and I am sure that no one can more fitly welcome our distinguished guest to the State than Governor Johnston.”
Mr. Washington is a star lyceum lecturer when he can afford the time, but he devotes nearly his entire time and gives all his earnings to the institute, and is able through his persuasive powers to secure from rich contributors far more money than the largest pay audiences would yield. Still, many of our first-class lecture courses are able to secure him, and invariably with handsome profit.
PREACHERS
HENRY WARD BEECHER was my nearest and dearest friend for eleven years. Excepting only Arizona and New Mexico, there was not a State or Territory in the Union in which we had not travelled together. In sunshine and in storm, by night, by day, by every conceivable mode of travel, in special Pullman cars, the regular passenger trains, mixed trains, freight trains, on steamboats and rowboats, by stage and on the backs of mules, I had journeyed at his side. I was near him in the days of 1875-77, at the time of his deepest sorrow, when he was reviled and spit upon; I saw the majestic courage with which he passed through gaping crowds at railroad stations, and at the entrances of hotels and public halls—a courage which I had not conceived mere humanity could possess. I have looked upon him when I felt that I would give my poor life a thousand times could that sacrifice alleviate the mental sufferings that I knew he was undergoing. There were times when it seemed as though he must give way; times when I was the only friend within his reach, and he sought refuge near and with me. It was thus that he came to love and trust me, and that my love and veneration for him became so strong that to lose him left me like a ship without a helm or a commander.
Especially during those three darkest years was he the subject of my sad admiration. Often have I seen him on our entering a strange town hooted at by a swarming crowd and greeted with indecent salutations. On such occasions he would pass on, seemingly unmoved, to his hotel, and remain there until the hour for his public appearance; then, confronted by great throngs, he would lift up his voice, always for humanity and godliness. He always saw and seized the opportunity to speak to the whole great people, and after he had spoken, the assemblages would linger to draw near, seemingly to touch the hem of his garments, to greet the man whom they had so lately despised. How changed I have often seen the public attitude toward him when he left a town to which he had come but the day before! Thus he went from city to city, making friends and advocates of all who heard or met him, and thus for eleven years was it my delight to accompany him in his work of re-establishing himself in that love and confidence of the people from which unprincipled enemies and an often merciless press had attempted to thrust him out forever.
I thank God that it was my privilege to attend his fortunes to the end, and to see and to hear, on both sides of the continent and on both sides of the ocean, demonstrations of love and confidence that came at length in so unsullied and vast a stream from the church, his friends, his country, and his race, toward him who had brought many thousands of them much nearer than they had been to the common Master of us all.
John Bright told me that Henry Ward Beecher was the greatest orator who spoke the English tongue. When Beecher came to Plymouth Church, in 1847, he was thirty-four years of age, strong and rugged in health, unconventional in manners, but never ungentlemanly. In his free, brusque address and direct approach he was different from more polished clergymen, and no man ever lived more directly under the public gaze than did Mr. Beecher for forty years; his life was seen and read by all men,—his public life,—but few have known of his domestic gentleness and invariable sweetness of nature. He was the centre of loving hearts. Strong and powerful as he knew he was, to those he loved he was as gentle as a mother. As to enmities, he had none, and he hardly knew he had enemies. He was the most joyous, radiantly happy man that ever lived.
I remember saying to him one day after I had seen him walking arm in arm with a man who had injured him, who had been abusing him: “I think you are carrying the doctrine of forgiveness too far.”
He said: “Pond, can we go further than to bless those who curse us, and pray for those who despitefully use us? Ah, there is so little known of the spirit of Christ in the world that when a man is trying feebly and afar off to follow Him, even Christians do not understand it.”
No answer could be made to such reasoning, and friends knew and learned from him what was meant by being a Christian. His theory was that as a son of God and in unison with his Father, he had a right to happiness, and this right he would allow no man or set of men to take from him.
He had, as I can bear witness, the power of abstraction, by which he could put away all thoughts of care and trouble, and rise to a higher atmosphere where the heavens were blue and unclouded, while his eyes and ears seemed closed to all lower considerations. To those nearest to him at these times this power seemed almost superhuman.
From my earliest recollection, in our log cabin on the frontier of Wisconsin, the name of Dr. Lyman Beecher was a household word. One day—I think it was in the summer of 1846—my mother was reading a paper that some friend had sent from the East containing a sermon by Henry Ward Beecher, a young son of Lyman Beecher, pastor of a new church in Indianapolis, in which the young man had dared to denounce slavery. Garrison, Thurlow Weed, Phillips, Beecher, Theodore Parker, Finney, were names as familiar to me in boyhood as those of my own relatives. Then came the Kansas conflict, Captain John Brown, and Sharp’s rifles (known as Beecher Bibles).
Educated, trained, and a participant in those early conflicts in Kansas, as I was, with the name of Beecher as a beacon light, one may perhaps be able to realize my feelings of reverence and awe for this great man when I met him for the first time in Brooklyn, in his own house, in April, 1875. I never had experienced such a feeling before. My lips trembled, my tongue seemed paralyzed, my throat clogged, my eyes flooded. I was helpless; I was joyous; so filled to overflowing with something that I must have made a fool of myself. Holding fast to my hand, Mr. Beecher walked over to the sofa in the parlor, set me down, and began questioning me about James Redpath, who had owned the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, in Boston, and for whom Mr. Beecher had lectured. I told him that Mr. Redpath had gone out of the business and had returned to journalism in New York, and that Mr. Hathaway and I had bought out the concern; that a number of engagements for him to lecture had been indefinitely postponed the season before, with a promise on his (Mr. Beecher’s) part that new dates should be given the management as soon as he himself could forecast his own time. Nearly a year had passed, and these people were waiting.
To make a long story short, the time was arranged for, and new dates for New England, to begin Monday, April 18, 1875, in New London, Conn. This was the first lecture given by Mr. Beecher under my auspices. From that time until February, 1887, three weeks before his death, Mr. Beecher and I travelled together nearly 300,000 miles. He lectured 1261 times for me.
On many of our lecture tours we were favored with Mrs. Beecher’s companionship. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher were both good travellers—never the slightest trouble. They carried their own hand baggage, and would allow no outsider to touch it. One little journey we made together, a sort of “vacation excursion.” Mr. Beecher delivered seventy-five lectures on that little circuit of the continent, preached sixteen sermons, many of them in Plymouth churches, and travelled 17,000 miles.
I cannot undertake to give a connected, chronological account of even a part of my wonderful experiences with Mr. Beecher. I have simply selected here and there an episode which will serve to illustrate some characteristic of the man I knew.
We had returned from Mr. Beecher’s first visit to Nashville and Memphis, in May, 1879. It had been a short tour of unusual interest to him; he had never before been south of Mason and Dixon’s line, except for a single night in Richmond, Va., in 1877. I accompanied him on the tour, and to his first Friday evening prayer-meeting in Plymouth Church after our return, for I was quite certain his people were to be treated to some interesting comments on our journey. I asked Mr. Ellingwood (Mr. Beecher’s stenographer) to take down the “talk” and write it out for me privately, which he did, and here it is—the first time it has ever seen the light of day:
Note.—This reproduction is from the last photograph Mr. Beecher ever had taken. It was made by Elliot & Fry in London, September, 1886. As he started to leave the gallery, he said to me: “Now, sir, I am ready to be led to the next block for slaughter.” He was looking me squarely in the eye as he spoke. The photographer said: “Stand right where you are, just a moment, Mr. Beecher.” He shifted his apparatus and caught this picture.
J. B. Pond.
“After the war, for the first time in my life it seemed to me that it was possible for me to visit the Southern portion of my native land. There had always been a sting in the thought that I, a citizen of the United States, who if need be would lay down his life for his country, could not cross Mason and Dixon’s line with any certainty of coming back, and that my name was a name to conjure with and bring up evil spirits. It had always hurt my pride of patriotism that I, a loyal and freedom-loving man, could not go where I pleased on this continent, that I could not go into any of thirteen or fourteen of these United States. I had feared that I should die without the sight.
“I did not know how the change was to be brought about, but I believed that there would be emancipation; that the conscience of mankind would slowly unfold and work in secret ways toward liberty, and that in the remote future free labor, applied to the raising of cotton and sugar, would compete in the market with slave labor and lead to abolition. That was my theory; but the Lord cut it short in righteousness; He severed the Gordian knot with the sword; this country was made free from end to end; and ever since I have said within myself, ‘Before I die I hope to tread the soil of every State in this Union.’ And now I have actually been away down South.
“I went first to Nashville—a beautiful city. The Fisk University, one of the marvels of the world, is there. It is really a very remarkable building, and it is very nobly manned. The whole of it has been sung into existence by men and women that had been in slavery. And, do you know, they look upon you at this church as being the author of their success. For you will recollect that the ‘Jubilee Singers’ came here impoverished and discouraged, hoping that they might raise a little money by singing. They were hardly able to meet their expenses in getting here. In this lecture-room, on a Friday evening, they were asked to sing some of their songs; and you said, after hearing them, ‘Those songs must be heard in the great church’; and when Sunday came they sang there; the fire was kindled, and invitations came in to them to sing in other places. Dr. Cuyler opened his church for them, and other churches were opened. Then they began to have calls from New England; and finally they went abroad. The result was that they earned over $200,000 singing through America, England, Germany, and France; and they have built with their breath that great collegiate institution, where five hundred of their kind are being instructed.
“Talk about old Rome, her achievements and her cathedrals. They are grand; but I will point to the rearing of the Fisk University by ex-slaves and their singing, and say, ‘It is the most wonderful thing that has yet been done in architecture.’
“I went the next day to Memphis. I shall never be President of the United States—I have made up my mind to that; but I had a taste of what it would be to be President, for they gave me twenty-one guns when I went into the town. I thought to myself, ‘Am I on earth? and am I in Memphis, on the Mississippi River, clear down in the southwest corner of the State of Tennessee, and only twelve miles from the State of Mississippi? And are these twenty-one guns for the pastor of Plymouth Church? Well, things have turned around pretty lively!’ I do not know how many people saw that spectacle; I only know that I saw it.
“I was taken about the city by the editor of the Memphis Appeal, one of the most stirring of the Southern papers. I could not ask for a more kind reception than I received at his hands. It was about six o’clock in the evening when I arrived, and the lecture was at eight. As there was no lecture-room large enough to hold the people that wanted to gather, Agricultural Hall was taken, and 4,000 seats were put into it, and out from a gallery, looking down upon the people, I delivered my lecture, and I delivered it just as plump and as fair as I ever did anywhere else. I received just as cordial and respectful a hearing as ever I had, and I never desire to speak to a more thoughtful, cultivated, courteous, sympathetic, and respectful audience than I had in Memphis. Yet they knew who I was, and they very well knew what my sentiments had been and were.
“I bless God that the day has come when a true heart, with kind and sympathetic feelings, will give a man entrance into every State of this Union to discuss any question that it is necessary to discuss before the people of the United States.”
It was on January 23, 1877, that I had arranged with W. T. Powell of Richmond, Va., for Mr. Beecher to lecture in that city. Mr. Powell was manager of the Richmond Theatre, and was to pay $400 for the lecture. It was to be on Tuesday evening, and as Mr. Beecher lectured Monday evening in Baltimore, we had arranged to take the sleeper immediately after the Baltimore lecture and be in Richmond early the following morning.
As we went aboard the sleeper at Baltimore a telegram was put into my hands which read as follows:
“Richmond, Va., January 22, 1877.
“To J. B. Pond, Baltimore, Md.
“No use coming. Beecher will not be allowed to speak in Richmond. No tickets sold.
“W. T. Powell.”
I at once replied: “Have started. Mr. Beecher will be on hand to keep his contract.” I did not mention the incident to Mr. Beecher.
Just before our arrival in Richmond the following morning, Mr. Powell came to me on the train and told me that the feeling against Mr. Beecher was so bitter that it would not do for him to attempt to speak; that not a ticket had been sold, and he dared not advertise.
Mr. Beecher and I went direct to the Exchange Hotel, and as he registered our names I saw at once that there was a general disposition, from the hotel clerk down to the negro porter and the bell-boy, to guy us.
We went down to breakfast, and the waiter and head waiter who seated us were disgustingly uncivil. Mr. Beecher made no remarks. We ate our breakfast, and as we passed out of the dining-room into a long hall we met a pretty little golden-haired child. Mr. Beecher, in his characteristic manner, stopped and began talking to and caressing the child, taking some candy from his pocket (he never was without bait for children), offered it, and was just getting into the little girl’s favor when the mother came along and snatched her away, as though she were rescuing her from a fierce beast of prey.
Mr. Beecher walked quietly to his room. I left instructions at the hotel office that no one was to knock at his door. Mr. Powell called and assured me that it would be all Mr. Beecher’s life was worth to attempt to speak in Richmond. I told him that I would let him off that night from his contract if he would rent me the theatre. He consented, and I at once got out some bills and dodgers and advertised Mr. Beecher to speak that evening. The Legislature was in session, and passed an informal vote that none of them would go near the theatre. The Tobacco Board did the same.
Evening arrived, and I could get no one to attend the door, so I did it myself. Mr. Powell applied for an extra force of a dozen police, which was of no account, as they were wholly in sympathy with the crowd.
The Rev. Dr. Grey, the principal Presbyterian minister, and the head of a leading institution of learning in Richmond, wrote the chief of police that though he distinctly wished it to be understood that he did not indorse or favor Mr. Beecher’s speaking in Richmond, he sincerely hoped that the threat to egg Mr. Beecher would not be carried into effect. As each member of the Legislature and the Tobacco Board knew that none of the other members would attend the lecture, each embraced the opportunity to go; and there, to their surprise, they all met. It was a crowd of men who made the best of the joke they had played upon themselves. They were hilarious and disrespectful.
The time came for me to go after Mr. Beecher. I had no door-tender, but the theatre was full of men, and my pockets were stuffed with dollars, so I left the door to take care of itself. I found him ready. While in the carriage on our way from the hotel to the theatre not a word passed between us, and during the day neither of us had spoken of the situation. When we arrived at the stage door of the theatre the dozen policemen were keeping the crowd back. As we alighted from the carriage at the door, a general yell went up. We met Mr. Powell on the stage. He called me to one side and said:
“Don’t you introduce Mr. Beecher. The gallery is full of eggs. You will have trouble.”
I stepped into the waiting-room. Mr. Beecher said: “Go ahead; I am ready.”
I walked on the stage, and he followed. As we sat down I saw the theatre full of men only. The crowd was disposed to be uncivil; canes began to rake the baluster of the balcony railing, and feet to pound the floor, and in less than a minute a yell fairly shook the theatre. Mr. Beecher signaled me to proceed.
I stood a moment for them to get quiet, and then introduced him to his first Virginian audience.
Mr. Beecher was to speak on “Hard Times,” but had decided to change the subject to the “Ministry of Wealth.” As he arose and stepped toward the footlights, another yell went up. He stood unmoved, and waited for some time; finally a lull came, and he began. He said that there was a natural law that brains and capital controlled the commercial world, and it could not be changed even by the Virginia Legislature, which opened with prayer and closed with the benediction. The Legislature were all there, and the public, like any other public, were ready to accept any good-natured drive at the Legislature.
It was not many minutes before the audience was in full sympathy with the speaker, and for two and a half hours Mr. Beecher addressed that crowd, swaying them with his mighty eloquence and telling them such truths as they never before had listened to. His peroration was a tribute to the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Mother of Presidents, her history and her people, and closed with a brief retrospect: how she had prospered when she set her mark high and bred her sons for Presidents and position, but how changed when she came to breed men for the market; how manfully and nobly her worthy sons had kissed the sod, and how sad had been her lot. But in all her prosperity and adversity God had not forsaken her. Industry brought prosperity, and soon, very soon, Virginia was to be one of the brightest stars in the constellation of States.
Such applause and cheers as he got during that address I have never before or since heard.
He stepped off the stage and into the carriage, and we were in our rooms at the hotel before half the audience could get out of the theatre.
After getting to his room Mr. Beecher threw himself back in a large chair in front of a blazing wood fire and laughingly said:
“Don’t you think we have captured Richmond?”
He had no more than spoken when the door opened and a crowd of men came rushing in. My first impression was that it was a mob, as it did not seem that there had been time for them to come from the theatre; but I was mistaken.
The foremost was a tall man with a slouch hat. (They were all in slouch hats.) He said:
“Mr. Beecher, this is our ‘Leftenant’-Governor. We have come to thank you for that great speech. This is our member for So-and-So, and this is Judge Harris,” and so on, introducing a score or more of prominent Virginians.
“Mr. Beecher, we want you to stay and speak for us to-morrow evening. We want our women to hear you,” etc.
Mr. Beecher was in his most happy humor. He shook the Virginians warmly by the hand. He told them that he was announced for Washington the following evening, and his time was all booked for the season. They offered to raise $500 if he would remain over. The following morning at seven o’clock many Virginians were at the station to see him off. All the morning papers contained extensive synopses of the lecture and favorable notices.
After that first appearance Mr. Beecher spoke twice in Richmond to the choicest audiences that the old capital could turn out. I consider this the greatest lecture I ever knew Mr. Beecher to give.
Mr. Beecher had preached in Davenport, Iowa, Sunday, March 4th, and lectured Monday evening. The crowds had been enormous on both occasions. People had come great distances from all directions.
While on the train from Iowa City, the morning of the 6th, a number of people in the same car were returning home from Davenport. Directly behind Mr. Beecher sat two very charming, refined ladies, dressed in black. I was seated directly opposite them, and noticed that they were amusing themselves by trying to gather up a number of Mr. Beecher’s long, white, silky hairs which had fallen on the velvet collar of his overcoat and about his shoulders. The ladies were proceeding so delicately and accumulating so fine a lock of his hair that it attracted the attention of a number of passengers, who seemed so intently interested in their success as to cause absolute silence all over the car. Mr. Beecher seemed interested in a book and unaware of what was going on about him. All of a sudden he quietly turned his head toward me. I noticed the twinkle in his eye, and at once knew something was coming.
“Pond, are there flies in this car?” he asked, as he quietly raised his hand to his shoulder as if to brush away a fly.
The spectators at once burst into a general laugh. The two ladies were, for a moment, apparently paralyzed. Finally one of them plucked up courage to say:
“Mr. Beecher, we have been all the way to Davenport to hear you preach and lecture. We are Brooklyn people. We saw some loose hairs on your shoulders, and could not resist the temptation to secure them as souvenirs. We hope you will pardon us.”
“Well,” said Mr. Beecher, “my wife never could have been so careful as that.”
Everybody in the car heard the conversation, and there was general merriment.
These ladies lived at Muscatine. They had once been members of Plymouth Church. Mr. Beecher entertained them until we reached the junction, where they left us for their home. He had given them all the late news from Plymouth and Brooklyn.
At Burlington, a week later, they came to the lecture with their husbands and families. They also came to the lecture in Washington, Iowa, and Monmouth, Ill. We never made a Western tour that they did not appear in some of the audiences.
March 26, 1878, we were in Topeka, Kan. While on a three weeks’ tour in the West we were at the Teft House, having arrived by an early train from Kansas City. We ate breakfast, and Mr. Beecher retired to his room, while I entertained old friends in the office, and there were many (as the exciting part of my career had been in this blood-bought State), from Mr. McMeakin, the proprietor, with his beard hanging down to the skirts of his garments, to Tom Anderson, Major Adams, Chester Thomas, George Peck, Gov. Tom Osborne, Benjamin Simpson, Rossington, and others. Mr. McMeakin interrupted the conversation by saying that an old colored man at the desk wanted to see Mr. Beecher, and would not accept the explanation that he would see no one during the morning, as he was resting.
The old darkey wore a long-tailed broadcloth coat and a plug hat about the same age as himself. He was a typical Uncle Ephraim. I left the crowd and spoke to him.
“Mr. Beecher is resting. He can see no one until he is up and rings his bell.”
“That’s right, sir. I know all about that, sir. You just take me to him. You’ll know if he wants to see me. He would be here just now if he knew I was to see him.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“It makes no difference. Just take me to him. I lived with him six years in Indiana. My wife nursed Miss Hattie and little Massa Harry. He knows me well ’nough.”
It came in such sincere, enthusiastic darky earnestness that I fully realized he was exactly the person Mr. Beecher would be glad to see at any hour.
I escorted him to Mr. Beecher’s room, walking quietly in without knocking, as was my custom. He was lying on his bed wide awake.
“Here is an old citizen of Kansas who not only claims that he knows you, but insists that you want to see him.”
Mr. Beecher had no more than set eyes on him than he exclaimed:
“Well, I guess he’s about right. Jim, how are you? Come in and tell me about yourself right away. I haven’t seen you for over thirty years.”
“Thirty-three years, Mr. Beecher,” said the darky “Well, well, why haven’t you reported to me where you were all this time? What has become of Letitia?”
“She’s right here, Mr. Beecher. She’s going to the lecture to-night just to see you.”
“Where are you living? Have you got a family?”
“I live here in Topeka, Letitia and I. We’s got four sons. They all time about here. All got good farms but Henry, our youngest boy. He ain’t no good. Henry was named for you, Mr. Beecher. He’s at the race-track. He trains fine horses for the biggest horseman in Kansas,” and he went on giving his history for thirty-three years. He and his eldest sons had been through the war, and they had been in all the struggles in Kansas, and he knew all about it.
“Letitia is mighty anxious to see you, Mr. Beecher. Yes, she is, sir.”
“Pond, get a carriage, and we’ll ride out to see Letitia. You’ll see what good housekeeping is.”
We all went down to the office together. The same crowd of old friends were still loitering about, waiting for a chance to see and meet Mr. Beecher, to whom I introduced them, and then ordered a hack.
Mr. Beecher told the gentlemen that he was very glad to see an old servant who had once taken great care of him and Mrs. Beecher, when they first lived in Indiana, and he was going out to see his wife, whom Mrs. Beecher had partly brought up and trained in housekeeping. They told Mr. Beecher that Jim was very well known and respected, and the richest colored man in Kansas.
A few moments later Mr. Beecher and this colored man and I were riding through the streets of the capital of Kansas in an open carriage. There could be no more appropriate background for that picture than the Capitol of Kansas. We soon drove up to a very fine-looking large frame house in the quarter of negro aristocracy. There were flowers in the yard and climbers over windows and doors. As we were dismounting, Mr. Beecher said:
“I see Letitia has not forgotten her love for flowers.”
Just then a very large and motherly colored woman came to the door to welcome him. I don’t believe that in all our travel we ever enjoyed a visit more than that. They lived over their early life in Indiana, and Mr. Beecher recollected just the incidents and circumstances they were in touch with—the building of the house, the making of the gardens, the flowers, the different horses, cows, and the long rides they had together in his missionary work, prying their old mud wagon out of the mire and pulling the horses out of swamps. Each and all had shared these hardships alike, and were now enjoying alike the reminiscences.
After an hour we drove back to the hotel, Mr. Beecher sounding the praise of his old servants until we arrived. Dinner was ready, and no small portion of the town waiting to set eyes on my star.
About 6 that evening Jim came in with a large pitcher of hot coffee, something that was hard to get in that country.
“Mr. Beecher, Letitia was afeared you would have no good coffee here, and she knowed how much you needed it, as you speak to-night. She never forgot the coffee, you know.”
“Oh, Jim, tell Letitia that she knows just how to have a good lecture to-night.”
It was a good lecture.
Mr. Beecher’s visit to his old servants before he had seen any callers was much and favorably commented upon, and greatly enhanced the popularity of the already best-known colored citizen in the town.
Mr. Beecher never ate before speaking. Not even at home on Sunday did he take breakfast. He was a great coffee drinker, and always required one or two cups of good coffee instead of his meal before a lecture or sermon. He gave me to understand before we started out together that if we were to have good lectures we must have good coffee. So I found it very often necessary to impress upon the host at our hotel that Mr. Beecher’s success depended upon the hotel-keeper as much as on the lecturer. It was very seldom we failed to have good coffee, except when in some frontier city in the far West and through the South.
On August 18, 1883, Mr. Beecher lectured in Butte City, Mont. We arrived by an early train, went directly to the hotel, and Mr. Beecher retired to his room to lie down. We had left Mrs. Beecher for a day’s rest at Deer Lodge, about forty miles from Butte, a sort of mountain watering-place, to join her on the following day on our way to Portland, Ore.
While Mr. Beecher was sleeping in the forenoon the proprietor of the hotel told me there was a lady in the parlor who wished to see him. Answering the summons, I found a young woman with a child in her arms. I asked her what she wanted with Mr. Beecher. She replied that she and her husband were members of Plymouth Church; that she wanted him to baptize her baby. I knew very well that under these circumstances Mr. Beecher would be glad to be disturbed, so I called him, and he came to the parlor, shook hands with the woman, patted the baby on the cheek, and asked:
“What are you members of Plymouth Church doing here?”
“My husband is working in the mines.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About two years, sir.”
“Where is your husband? “ asked Mr. Beecher.
“He hasn’t any coat, and doesn’t care to come in. He’s down at the door.”
Mr. Beecher turned to me and said: “Pond, bring that man up here.”
I found the hardy young miner and brought him up to the parlor. He was in his shirt-sleeves. He shook hands, saying: “Ah, Mr. Beecher, don’t you remember me? I am a member of Plymouth Church. I was very unfortunate in Brooklyn. I am a better man now, thanks to you, sir.”
It appeared that this young man had been unfortunate in Brooklyn. Through Mr. Beecher’s influence, and his wife’s, he had resolved to try his fortune in the far West.
Mr. Beecher was deeply affected at their earnest desire to have him baptize their only child, and I knew the baby’s baptism would be very impressive. As I stepped downstairs for a pitcher of water I met an editor of one of the papers, whom I had formerly known. I told him to come upstairs, that Mr. Beecher was about to baptize the child of one of his parishioners. It was indeed one of the most beautiful ceremonies I ever witnessed. I know we all cried.
He questioned them considerably concerning their circumstances, and asked me to see that they had tickets for the lecture that night.
The man had to hurry back to his work in the mine. Mr. Beecher asked the mother to accompany him with her baby to a clothing store across the street, where he purchased a suit of clothes for her husband, giving instructions for them to be sent to his house at once. He then allowed the mother to take her baby home, not without a recommendation to be sure she brought her husband to the lecture that night. The woman replied that she had no one with whom to leave the baby.
“Bring the baby,” said Mr. Beecher. “If there is no one else to take care of it, I will, or I will have Pond tend it.”
She was very much overcome with all this unexpected kindness. Her eyes were almost bursting with tears of gratitude as she walked away from the store.
After her departure we went to a dry goods store, where Mr. Beecher told the proprietor that he wanted several things. First, everything complete for a child of ten months, such as dresses, flannels, and such pretty things as a child wears, even to the little shoes and stockings, cloak, and bonnet. Then he told him that he wanted some goods for a dress for a woman who was in poor circumstances, but very worthy—something that she could wear and look becoming. He bought two or three calico dresses besides, and such other articles as he thought a poor family would most need, and ordered them all sent to the house. I paid the bills, and have them, receipted, now. They were altogether $83.
That evening Mr. Beecher lectured to an immense audience, all the seats having been sold in advance. We succeeded in placing two chairs at one side near the platform, which this little Plymouth family occupied. They were very attentive, and enjoyed the lecture immensely. The baby was quiet and playful during the early part of the evening, then fell quietly asleep in its mother’s arms. No one was in the least disturbed. I believe the orator got his inspiration for that occasion from this little party.
At the close of the lecture there was the usual rush to congratulate and shake hands with Mr. Beecher, including the Mayor, who presided, and the best people of Butte. I think he hardly noticed them, but made a break through the crowd and went directly to his former parishioners and congratulated them on the good behavior of the baby, told them many things of Plymouth Church and Brooklyn, enjoying it much more than all the congratulations the people had to offer afterward.
As Mr. Beecher and I returned to the hotel that evening, I said: “Mr. Beecher, it seems to me there are few men who would devote themselves for a day to a kindness like that.”
He replied: “Next to my own children are the members of my church.”
Mr. Beecher spoke in Bloomington, Ill., being introduced by an old gentleman, a former friend of Abraham Lincoln. He was a very old man, and I could see that he was very much respected. As he approached the audience to make the introductory speech, he hesitated for a word, and after a moment felt in his pockets for his manuscript, and discovered that he had forgotten them. Poor old gentleman! He was dreadfully embarrassed, and so was the audience for him. Mr. Beecher helped him out, and explained to the audience that it was a common mistake among speakers, of which he himself had often been guilty.
He was to speak in Decatur that night, and I was obliged to secure a special train, as the regular train was four hours late. I secured a caboose and engine on the Illinois Central Railroad. We reached a small station about half-way to Decatur. We had to take a side track and wait for an upcoming train to pass. I saw a great crowd at the station, but our side track took us to one side of the town. We had no more than stopped when, looking back, I saw the crowd rushing toward our car. It was during the period when Mr. Beecher was most liable to insult, and I instinctively felt that that crowd were not coming to do him honor. We had a large coal stove in the caboose. It was red hot. A heavy iron poker lay on the floor. I ran the poker into the stove and let it heat. The mob came on and insisted on getting into the car. As I was watching the front door Mr. Beecher called, “Pond!” I looked around and saw that they had forced open the back door. I at once asked them to leave, as it was a private car and a special train. They kept crowding in, and I saw trouble ahead if they persisted. I caught the poker (which had become red hot) out of the stove and went for them. I jabbed it straight into them, and they began to get out.
I know that one of those roughs, if he is living, bears a scar, as I sawed the poker square across his arm and heard the meat fry.
We reached Decatur in time for the lecture, and went to Springfield the next day.
Once in 1884 Mr. Beecher requested me to postpone a lecture engagement on account of an important wedding which he said he had on hand. He declined to tell me who was to be married.
In fact, he said, he knew little about it himself. He invited me to his house that evening, and I was sitting with Mrs. Beecher in the library when the door bell rang and the parties were escorted to the parlor. He called Mrs. Beecher to join the party, but I was not invited. They must have remained an hour chatting after the ceremony, and then Mr. Beecher, in his cheerful, delightful manner, escorted them to the door, and they drove off. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher then returned to the library, expressing great wonder, and, I think, satisfaction, at the event.
Then he told me that he had just married C. P. Huntington to Mrs. A. D. Warsham, who was quite a prominent woman in New York and the subject of considerable comment as being very ambitious. He believed she would make Mr. Huntington an excellent wife. She was just the woman for him.
Several weeks after this incident Mr. Beecher and I were together on the cars and he was having what he called a “general house-cleaning” of his pockets—not an uncommon occurrence. His pockets would often get loaded up with letters and papers, and if he happened to be sitting by an open car window, he would clear out his pockets, tear up old letters and throw them away.
On this occasion he happened to put his hand in the watch pocket of his pantaloons and found there a little envelope, which he opened. When he saw its contents, he called me to sit beside him, and remarked:
“You remember the evening I married C. P. Huntington. I was so much interested in the subject that I forgot he handed me a little envelope as he went out of the door. I put it in the watch pocket of my pantaloons, and never thought of it again until just now, and here it is—four one thousand dollar bills.
“Now,” he said, “don’t tell any one about it and we will have a good time and make some happiness with this money. We will just consider that we found it.”
A few days later he called and asked me to go with him down town to look at a cargo of rugs which had just arrived. I think we went to a place somewhere on Pearl street, below Fulton, and we had to go up two or three flights of stairs. The place was packed with rugs, and men were overhauling and marking them. Many were brought out and shown to Mr. Beecher, who seemed to be quite an expert in rugs, as well as in all other lines of art. He picked out quite a number—some of them very valuable ones—and left instructions to have them sent to various friends of his in accordance with a list which he had made out. There was one beautiful prayer rug which he sent to a friend in Peekskill, a member of his church, and I think he sent one to each of his children, and to his sons’ wives. He also purchased quite a number for his own house. For one small prayer rug he paid $40. I asked him to let me pay for that one and keep it for myself. He said: “No; that’s the finest rug here. I propose to keep that one for myself.” I saw it sold for $95 at the Beecher collection sale, but I would not bid against the young Plymouth Church lady, a near friend of Mr. Beecher, and she got it. All of those rugs would bring higher prices than Mr. Beecher paid for them.
Later we were at Bailey, Banks & Biddle’s, in Philadelphia, where he purchased a beautiful coin silver lamp, and paid $100 for it, remarking:
“Pond, this is some of the money that we found.” He sent the lamp to his own home, and I afterwards saw it sold in his collection at the American Art Galleries for $18 to Mrs. Blair. I tried to get to the auctioneer to tell him that it was a coin silver lamp and what Mr. Beecher had paid for it, but it was too late.
He bought a pair of andirons in Cincinnati and sent them to his little friend, Violet Beach, in Peekskill. Her mother had lately built a beautiful house adjoining Mr. Beecher’s farm. In his letter to Violet’s mother he said:
“I send a present to Violet, and if she doesn’t like it, let her put it in the fireplace.”
He purchased a great many unmounted gems, some of which he subsequently had mounted and gave them to friends. Many were mounted in very pretty rings.
I think he really did absorb the entire $4.000 in making happiness among those whom he loved. This was one of Mr. Beecher’s eccentricities.
After Mr. Beecher’s death, Mr. C. P. Huntington was very kind to Mrs. Beecher. He always furnished her transportation for transcontinental tours to visit her son on Puget Sound, and it was my privilege to call upon him with Mrs. Beecher’s messages, as Mr. Beecher dead was Mr. Beecher living to me, so I took pleasure in going on these errands.
One day I related to Mr. Huntington the incident of Mr. Beecher’s discovery of the four thousand-dollar bills, and he replied:
“I should never have given them to him. It was all wrong. I made a mistake. Money never did him any good.”
Since that time I have visited many of Mr. Beecher’s old friends, and have seen in their houses some of the rugs and other presents purchased with that money—souvenirs that call up fond memories of the dearest friendship one could possibly possess. I often wonder whether happiness made in that way is not more effective than when money is invested in some public library or other charitable institution, where it never arouses any feeling of personal gratitude on the part of the beneficiaries, who, if they are any better off for the legacy, hardly seem to know it.
In many a group of ministers in nearly every large city in this country have I seen Mr. Beecher standing as a father, giving and receiving blessings. When he left churches and halls where he had been preaching and lecturing, crowds always surged around him, accosting him in grateful words, asking to shake hands with him, and cheering him loudly as he drove away.
Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Unitarians, Universalists, Jews, and Catholics, all mixed in the crowd and seemed equally anxious to do him honor.
In his private conversation his speech was as perfect in quality of thought, in richness of illustration, and in precision of statement as were his public utterances. This is true of only one other man that I have ever known, and that man, Wendell Phillips, was the least like him of all the orators of his day. One could spend a day in converse with either of these men, then listen to the lecture or sermon, and feel that the conversation was fully equal, if not superior, to the speech. I am bound to say from our long and intimate acquaintance that I believe Mr. Beecher’s best things have been said in private.
Perhaps nothing more significant of his sympathy with society at large can be shown than the promptness with which he accepted an offer of chaplaincy by the Thirteenth Regiment of the National Guard, through its commander, Colonel Austen. In January, 1878, the tender was made and accepted.
As usual Mr. Beecher’s action was canvassed and criticised in Plymouth Church, whereupon at a Friday evening prayer-meeting he said: “I did not accept, as you may readily suppose, because I had nothing to do, and because I wanted to fill up vacant time. It was not because I had any special military gifts, or that any special military proclivities led me to delight in such position. I was as much surprised as any one could be when the request was made by Colonel Austen, and I was informed that it was the unanimous wish of the officers of the regiment that I should accept the place. The first impulse I felt on receiving the invitation was to say No, but the second impulse was in the nature of a query, whether there was not some duty there. The question was not exactly ‘Should you accept the place?’ but rather, ‘Why should you not accept it? Is it not eminently wise that a body of young men, organized as a force of citizen soldiers, should have a chaplain? Is not a body of this kind, resembling in some respects a social club, unrestrained by the presence of women, fraught with great danger? Is it not liable to become a veritable maelstrom in which young men may be sucked down to destruction?’ It seems to me there is no question that they should be surrounded by some kind of moral influence, and it appeared to be a pertinent question whether, if some one should respond, I was not the one to do it. In my case, there seemed to be special reasons why I should respond. I had been always among the foremost in the matters that led to the war, and was forward in upholding the various measures of the war, and it hardly seemed wise or proper for me to turn away from the citizen soldiery after they had done their duty in that war, thus tacitly saying that they were of no further consequence to the nation or to the community. And even more than all this was the consideration that many of the young men of the regiment are members of my own flock here. And if it is wise and prudent to have a citizen soldiery, properly equipped and ready at all times to serve as a background of support for the civil authorities, it is certainly well to have them fortified and strengthened by all the good influences it is possible to throw around them. I go not for pleasure, but hoping to do them good. I want to help them as soldiers, as well as individuals, for I don’t like to have anything to do with a thing that doesn’t go. The regiment has entered upon a new life, and it will be rendered more prosperous than ever. At any rate, I hope you will have its well-being at heart, if for no other sake, at least for my sake, for I should not like to do anything in which I would not have the prayers of my people.”
In a formal record, printed in the North American Review, Colonel Austen pays high compliment to his chaplain, who, it appears, made his first parade on the occasion of the dedication of the Martyrs’ Tomb at Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on the 30th of May, 1878. “He had been invited,” says Colonel Austen, “and an order forwarded, to which this jovial reply was received:
“‘Brooklyn, No. 124 Columbia Heights.
“‘My Dear Colonel:
“‘I will be present, fully armed and equipped, as becomes a chaplain of the Old Thirteenth. Yours ever,
“‘Henry Ward Beecher,
“‘Captain Secular and Chaplain Spiritual of the Old Thirteenth—God
bless her.’
“Mr. Beecher had secured a spirited horse, which I had been advised was a Kentucky thoroughbred, and which he proposed to ride. In reply to a suggestion made by me that he might have trouble in the control of so spirited a steed, Mr. Beecher said: ‘I can stand any demonstration as long as the horse enjoys himself.’
“The order to march was given, the drums rolled out their first notes, and the horse, unused to such martial sounds, reared and plunged so that I made an effort to have the music stopped. But Mr. Beecher immediately discountenanced it. The Plymouth pastor firmly held his seat, his horsemanship exciting general admiration. He soon brought the steed under complete control, and, in passing me, on his way to his place in the staff line, he said quietly, ‘I guess this horse was not aware of the fact that I had my training in Indiana. Out there, when I went to visit my parishioners, in my younger days, I didn’t follow the roads, and the rail fences didn’t stand in my way. The horse knows all that now, and will march in line in proper order.’
“Our chaplain was right. His bold Kentucky thoroughbred had been instantly and utterly subdued. Not once again did the animal leave the line; but the fire of his eye showed that it was the master hand alone that held him under control.
“On the march the rain began to fall, and, apprehensive of Mr. Beecher’s health, I urged him to leave the line and return home. ‘Are you going to leave?’ and when I replied in the negative, he said: ‘A soldier desert on his first parade? Oh, no; I never do anything by halves. I have enlisted for the war, and my maiden battle must be fought out, even if the big drum has bursted.’”
Mr. Beecher’s presence was always the occasion of a marked ovation along the entire line of march when the regiment paraded, and his spirits were of the best.
His Peekskill home was his earthly paradise, and every laborer upon it, every animal, almost every insect, had its place in his heart; for that was the wonder of his greatness, that the smallest and the least shared his love and sympathy.
His delight in nature was deep, continuous, and sometimes rapturous.
He kept a farm diary, which was picked up from among the rubbish after the family had moved away. It contained entries at different periods each summer from the time he went to Peekskill until the autumn before his death. There were two books, bound in calf, full of entries in his own hand. It was a complete directory of the farm. Here are a few of the many hundred entries:
“June 12, 1867.—Some pale maple leaves are already letting go. A few descended before my window this morning. One of them stuck into the grass stem first, and quivered in a way that would make you think it was a bird. This is the very beginning of summer, and before trees have fairly got on their summer robes they begin contribution to death.
“July 5.—Bobolink sang to-day. Bluebirds, none. Robins, larks, wren, yet songful. Woodrobin, some.
“July 18, 1867.—Woodthrush still vocal last night; heard it when on compound road; also in Killendgrass Wood. First new potatoes yesterday.
“July 26.—Woodrobin still sings. Second brood on corner robins coming off. Rain thus far abundant.
“August 3.—Vireo, song-sparrow, meadow-lark, house-wren. For two days robin song ceased. Woodthrush have not heard for two days. On twenty-ninth of July the last hay cut.
“August 6, 1867.—Heard to-day the first yellow-hammer of the season, and also half a song of the robins, and only in snatches. Sparrow still sings. Wren silent. Sparrow yet quite vocal, and bluebirds flying in air give their soft and tender song.
“October 3, 1867.—Yesterday was particularly full of birds that seem to be travelling through on their way south. Bluebirds lisped their gentle and most ladylike notes, robins flew in threes and fives, high in the air. Heard a yellow-hammer and meadow-lark sing. To-night no sound but the melodious cricket, whose gurgle is far more agreeable than the hard and grating sounds of katydid and locust.
“August 2, 1872.—Robin silent for a week. Occasional note yet from woodthrush. Finches, sparrows, and linnets vocal. Young brood of thrushes hatched and now flying near hickory trees. The robin is the most powerful of all singers; his voice leads all, and constitutes four-fifths of the sound in summer mornings.
“1881.—After a faithful service of twenty-three years Thomas James Turner departed this life Wednesday, January 5, 1881, and was buried from my house, with service also in the Episcopal Church in Peekskill, where he had long been a communicant, and with Masonic honors, Saturday, January 8, 1881. He was, according to the measure of his gifts, an upright, faithful, and trustworthy man, who served not for lucre. I should be glad to have his name associated with this place, upon which he lived from about the time I bought it, and who has had a hand in every step in improvements which made it what it is this day.”
In 1863 Mr. Beecher made a single speech in Great Britain, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, but it was delivered in piecemeal in different places. Its exordium was on the 9th of October, in Manchester; its peroration was pronounced on the 20th of the same month in Exeter Hall, London. The public is more or less familiar with the result of that mission.
After a few months’ absence he returned to America, having finished a more remarkable embassy than any envoy who has represented us in Europe since Franklin pleaded the cause of the young Republic at the court of Versailles. He had no official existence; but through the heart of the people he reached nobles, ministers, courtiers, and the throne itself. He whom The Times attacked, he whom Punch caricatured, was a power in the land. The change of the ruling classes in England, who were strong for the South, was at once manifest. As Mr. Scott, who introduced him in Exeter Hall, told me years later: “You should have been here to witness the effect of that speech as he swayed his enthusiastic audience hither and thither by his convincing arguments and appeal.”
I was a soldier at that time, commanding a battalion of cavalry on the frontier of southwestern Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian country, but I read with eagerness of the great achievements of Mr. Beecher in England. We soldiers looked upon Beecher at home as Beecher in the field. He sharpened the swords, ran the bullets, and forged the cannon. His speeches read by the soldiers made Spartans out of the most timid. He inspired, encouraged, and electrified as no one else could.
During all our travels and associations together in this country my anxiety and determination to have Mr. Beecher heard again in England became more and more intense. I never could get much encouragement until the spring of 1886, when, after much deliberation and urging by friends, he told me to go ahead. I immediately engaged passage from New York on Saturday morning, June 19. At that eventful Friday evening prayer-meeting, the evening before Mr. and Mrs. Beecher sailed, both the lecture-room and the auditorium were crowded. When the great overflow asked Mr. Beecher if they could not go into the auditorium, he replied: “No; this is our prayer-meeting room, where we have met on Friday evenings for forty years, and I do not feel like making this evening an exception.” The overflow filled the main auditorium with members and friends waiting to say good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Beecher.
The ship left the wharf at 6 o’clock on the morning of the 19th, her decks crowded with passengers not yet aware of Mr. Beecher’s presence; but as he stood almost alone on the forecastle deck, leaning on the rail, his well-known form attracted attention of people on the ferry-boats, and simultaneously the whistles of tugboats and other neighboring craft were sounded in salute.
Over a thousand Plymouth Church people had risen before the sun to pay a farewell tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Beecher by an excursion down the harbor on the steamer Grand Republic.
Before we reached Liberty Island and slowed down, the Grand Republic came alongside, her throng of passengers crowded to the nearer guards, and sent up cheer after cheer.
We passed Sandy Hook at 10:30, and were soon out at sea, bound for England. We found on board baskets, bouquets, and banks of flowers. Many friends had sent letters of farewell, and one had provided a basket of homing pigeons with instructions how to send the messages, what birds to fly first, and what others at 2 and 3 o’clock. Mr. Beecher wrote messages to his sons and to his friends in various parts of the country, fastened them to the birds according to directions, took the birds in his hands, playfully gave them parting instructions, and let them fly. They reached their destination in due time.
On the next Saturday morning at daybreak we awoke off the Irish coast. There was a heavy fog, and the fog-whistle was making a horrible din. We could hear voices in the distance, noises of life and commerce; soon the fog lifted, and we saw land. At 6 o’clock we reached Queenstown. Here many of our passengers disembarked, and here, with the Dublin morning papers, we got letters and telegrams, and countless invitations for Mr. Beecher to dine and to speak and lecture. We saw that Gladstone was announced to speak in Liverpool the following Monday, and decided to remain and hear him. We received letters from Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Parker, Dr. Henry Allon, and a host of others of Mr. Beecher’s clerical friends, inviting him to preach, and scores of applications from all parts of the kingdom for lectures.
We landed in Liverpool at 7:30 in the evening, and were met by delegations from Bradford, Leeds, York, Carnarvon, Manchester, Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin, and other cities. Reporters from the London papers were also in waiting. My fondest dream was realized. I want to tell something of that experience, because, under some strange journalistic influence, the American newspaper accounts of the trip rather left it to be inferred that there was lack of success. But let us see.
We spent Sunday, the 27th, in Liverpool. Mr. Beecher had several invitations to preach, but was obliged to decline all since he had not regained his vigor lost in seasickness. He found his way to some church alone, and sat in a large congregation unrecognized for the first time since he was ordained a minister. In the afternoon many clergymen and many men active in politics called to pay their respects.
The first lecture in England took place in Exeter Hall, London, July 19. It was in the same hall that Mr. Beecher had spoken when last in England, during our American Civil War. I believe there was scarcely a clergyman or minister in the city of London who would have declined the honor of introducing Mr. Beecher on this occasion, but Mr. Beecher said to me on the morning of the lecture: “Pond, when I spoke here in 1863, having hard work to find some one to preside, Mr. Benjamin Scott, chamberlain of the city of London, volunteered his services. See if you can find him; I want him to take the chair to-night.”